So after 8 hours of grueling labor last Saturday, my custom closets are finally installed. That was part of the deal for me being able to get such a huge discount on my closets - I had to do all of the demo prior to the install, and I had to help install. In my opinion, it was entirely worth it to help demo and install the closets to get a price to about half of what it would have been.

I live in a condo that I paid $290K for. About 2 years ago, I started getting some quotes for having custom closets put into our master bedroom. Most quotes came in at $5-$6,000. Though that was only about 2-2.5% of the cost of the house, I couldn’t justify it to myself to actually spend that much on our closets, so here I found myself 2 years later. I have a friend who just bought a franchise from a closet company, so I asked for a quote, then I asked for the quote with me providing the labor. To my surprise, the quote went down considerably, so I decided to just go ahead and pull the trigger. The conditions:

1. Demolition & Prep
   I do all the demolition and have the closet empty and ready to go at the time of installation. This was actually harder than I expected… not the demolition part… I love me some demo… the hard part was getting all of our clothes out. You would be amazed at how much stuff piles up inside your closet over the course of 5 years. Once the clothes were out, demo was quick and easy, then we put on a fresh coat of paint, a nuetral color so that the next owner of the house wouldn’t have to repaint over some hideous color.
2. Help With Installation
   I don’t mind getting my hands dirty and doing some wrenching, so this was just like an added bonus for me. You mean you’re going to charge me less than half AND I get to help??? No complaints here.

So the closets are done, I can already see the value of my home increasing. Good stuff. Anybody else out there have custom closets? Do you like them? Would you do it again if you had the chance?